It was remarkable to me how many Saints’ fans were ready to throw in the towel on New Orleans continuing to be Super Bowl contenders in the NFC since the end of the season.

No, I’m not saying that contract talks with Jimmy Graham are fun to hear, but they’re just that. They’re contract talks. Do you hold your contract talks publicly?

It’s OK that it works that way for high-priced athletes – it’s part of the business – but that doesn’t mean you have to over-analyze it. Just ignore it and wait until it’s all over with to get upset or elated about it.

Then came the news that Darren Sproles and Pierre Thomas could be gone and Lance Moore was released in this second wave of moves. The first wave saw Roman Harper and Johnathan Vilma and Jabari Greer and Will Smith go.

So for weeks there, so many Saints’ fans were down in the dumps. Some even were ready to tie a bow on the Saints’ window of opportunity.

Then came today.

After hearing about all the popular players who were leaving and how salary-cap strapped the team is for months, out of the blue comes this glorious news that the Saints signed free agent free safety Jairus Byrd from Buffalo.

Wow. Boy, has the outlooked now changed.

Every team has multiple holes, but the one biggest problem last year’s team had was that it couldn’t force turnovers. I’ve been hearing all the whining about not being able to run the football for years.

I’d love to run it more – and by the way, the Saints ran the ball up the middle on second-and-11 in the fourth quarter of a playoff game at Philly AND GOT 13 YARDS!!!!! (I still can’t believe that call was made by this outfit in that situation) – but folks if you force turnovers all that running that stuff becomes a very overrated criticism.

Believe me, if this offense gets the luxury of consistently only having to drive it 40 to 50 yards to score instead of 70 to 80 all the time, it becomes a whole new ball game (see 2009 season when the serial rapist was playing centerfield).

I heard one analyst say that the Byrd signing was the biggest Saints’ free agent signing since Drew Brees in 2006. That may be. Time will tell, but it’s big … really big.

And really Byrd is way higher on the NFL’s totem pole than Brees was back then.

It’s hard to get it done defensively in the NFL these days without a playmaking free safety.

To put it into some perspective, Seattle’s Earl Thomas is considered by most as the elite safety in the league these days. In four seasons, Thomas has collected 253 tackles, 15 interceptions and 31 pass breakouts.

In five seasons, Byrd has 356 tackles, 22 interceptions and 33 pass breakups.

In five seasons, Jenkins had 276 tackles, 38 pass breakups and just six interceptions.

Byrd is a ball-hawk and now could be part of one of the best’s safety tandems in the league with Kenny Vacarro. If they can both stay healthy, look out.

Byrd missed five games last year and two games his rookie year, but played in all 16 the three years in between.

And oh yeah, then came today.

Pierre Thomas signed a two-year contract extension, and the talk is that longtime Saints’ killer Steve Smith is going to be released by the Carolina Panthers.

Things are certainly looking up again for the Saints.

The truth, however, is that they were never looking down. Too many fans were just too upset for the wrong reasons.

Overlooking, of course, that the Saints called a running play up the middle on second-and-11 trailing on the road in a playoff game and got 13 yards.

Like most football fans watching the end of Sunday’s NFC Championship Game in Seattle, I was a bit surprised by the postgame interview with Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman.

Was I offended by it? No.

Did I think it was a good example for the youth of America? No, not really.

Do I think he’s a despicable person? No.

Would I like it if a Saints’ player did something like that? Probably not.

While the vast majority of the opinions I’ve heard since Sherman’s rant have been negative, I’m kind of in the middle. Some things about it were bad, there were a few things about it that I liked and then there’s my petty side as well.

We’ll start with the petty side. In my mind, Sherman went to 49er U. (Stanford), was coached by a 49er while he was there (Jim Harbaugh) and is currently coached by an ex-49er (Pete Carroll). So let’s just blame it on the 49ers.

Plus, he had just beaten the 49ers, so he can’t be all bad. (Just joking, don’t get crazy).

The worst thing that Sherman did was touch Michael Crabtree after the interception. You’re just asking for trouble by touching a player when you’re taunting him after a big play. Not good. There’s no doubt that the NFL should fine him for that, especially when you consider all the silly things that players have been fined for in recent years.

As for the actual Erin Andrews interview, Sherman did get carried away, but he didn’t cross the line. He didn’t curse. He didn’t say anything about Crabtree’s family. He didn’t say anything but deliver his own personal low assessment of Crabtree’s football abilities.

It was certainly brash. It was certainly out of the ordinary. You might even call it a low-class or no-class or bush league move. It wasn’t over the line, however, as this modern era of trash-talking goes.

Not that he wasn’t very popular before this, but Sherman now has a great opportunity due to this incident. As the story goes, this is a 4.0 student from Compton who chose Stanford for non-football reasons, majored in communications and plans on being an NFL analyst when his career is over.

Hopefully, he can use his brains to turn this controversial incident into something positive from here on out.

With all of that said, I must admit that seeing him go off on Crabtree did do my heart good from one angle.

In this era of watching ESPN play up Red Sox vs. Yankees or Dodgers vs. Giants or whatever grudge match as one of the biggest rivalries in sports history, getting thousands of people to spend millions of dollars to support that “rivalry” and then watching phony jerks like Jacoby Ellsbury go from the Red Sox to play for the Yankees, Sherman’s comments were actually pretty refreshing.

So was Crabtree’s reaction. I could be getting fooled here, I’ll admit it, but I’m actually convinced that the Seahawks and Niners don’t like each other. I’m convinced that Sherman and Crabtree genuinely wouldn’t survive as teammates.

Meanwhile, the Yankees and Red Sox players act like they’re enemies in the media and on the field and then sign contracts to play for their supposed biggest rival at the drop of a hat.

When you look at the actual matchups on the field and the weather conditions and the incredible homefield advantage the Seahawks have enjoyed over the years, there’s not a lot of reasons to like the Saints’ chances of winning in Seattle on Saturday.

If you do any amount of studying recent NFL playoff history, however, there are several reasons for Saints’ fans to believe.

For starters, Seattle is a No. 1 seed and New Orleans is a No. 6 seed. We’re in an era that’s not kind to No. 1 seeds. Prior to 2005, No. 6 seeds were 0-9 against No. 1 seeds in this current playoff format.

Since 2005, No. 6 seeds are 6-2 against No. 1 seeds in the postseason (counting the one Super Bowl matchup between a 1 and a 6, which ironically was Seattle losing).

For 1 vs. 6, No. 1 seeds are 7-9 overall in that period and 2-4 in the last three years.

It doesn’t necessarily bode well for the Saints in this round, but in the last 13 years, the 2009 Saints were the only No. 1 seed in the NFC to win the Super Bowl.

Overall, in the last 16 years, only one team with the best record in the league in the regular season won the Super Bowl.

What most of those numbers indicate is that picking Seattle to win the Super Bowl is a bad prediction.

The question now is, how likely are the Saints the team to knock off Seattle and add to that trend?

The other big issue in this Saints-Seahawks matchup is Seattle’s 34-7 thumping of New Orleans back on Dec. 2.

And yes, there’s plenty of historical data to back that up as well.

Since the merger, teams that got routed in the regular season are 13-12 in rematches that team in the playoffs. While that may not be as resounding as some fans would want, that also doesn’t include several examples of 30-point losses in the regular season be followed by a one-point type loss in the postseason, i.e., not necessarily a win but certainly a completely different game than the first matchup.

Recent examples include Baltimore beating Denver last year after being handled 34-17 at home to the Broncos last year in the regular season in a game that was 31-3 going into the fourth period.

A few years before that, New England beat the Jets 45-3 in December of the regular season, only to lose to the Jets in the playoffs in January.

And then there’s Seattle losing at New Orleans 34-19 in the regular season in 2010 and then beating the Saints 41-36 in the playoffs.

Again, those statistics and examples certainly offer hope for the possibility of redemption, but what about these two particular teams in this particular stadium on this particular day?

Last week, the Saints beat such odds as 6-133 and 16-184 to winning at minus-2 in turnovers at Philadelphia.

This week, it’s a matter of doing the things that it takes to let the historical trends help them, like avoiding turnovers, stopping the run and finding a way to run it against a vastly superior defense than the Eagles possessed.

There’s no reason to believe that New Orleans will have success running it against Seattle. Don’t be fooled by last week’s effort – running for 120 yards in Seattle would be more impressive than running for 185 at Philly.

Despite the bad weather, New Orleans will need a more productive day from Drew Brees and Jimmy Graham to win. Graham hasn’t handled overly aggressive defenses this season. If he doesn’t improve in that area Saturday, that’s big trouble for the Saints.

Perhaps Marques Colston could take up the slack, but someone else would need to.

I said it before the Eagles game and I was wrong, but I’m going to say it again. This offense isn’t good enough to do it on its own like the 2011 offense was capable of pulling off. Some scoring (or at least some short fields) will need to come from defense or special teams for New Orleans to advance.

If not, the Saints will let the recent history of No. 6-seed success down.

Well, now that Nick Saban just got crushed in another postseason game, perhaps all of the brainwashed out there will be a little more willing to hear the other side of the story.

Instead of hearing all the constant praise by the national and regional media, it seems like a good time to at least deliver some of the facts (with a little opinion I’ll admit) to Saban’s career assessment.

It’s the side of the story that all those I’ve heard say stupid things like “Saban has an unblemished record” or Saban is the “best coach ever” amazingly ignore every broadcast, every week, every year.

Let’s start with the outright facts and then go beyond that for a little bit. The facts are that Saban now has a career postseason record of 8-7. That’s not bad, but certainly not unblemished and certainly not the best ever.

He started out 0-3 at Michigan State with three complete blowouts in games where his Spartans had the same record as their opponents in two of the three and just one fewer win in the other and should have been on equal footing. Stanford crushed his face 38-0, Washington did the same at 51-23 and LSU handled him 45-26.

That hardly seems like great coaching to me in what should have been competitive situations.

Then he went to LSU. The national media tells everyone that Saban made LSU. Sounds like Saban wasn’t too good when he arrived in Baton Rouge. Sounds like when he wasn’t holding all the cards in a two-team state prior to arriving and therefore didn’t shine.

I’ll give him credit for his first bowl win at LSU. The Tigers beat Georgia Tech 28-14 in a game where the Jackets had a better record and were the favorites to win. His defense obviously schemed a very unique rushing attack and stuffed it.

In the next season, LSU backed into the Sugar Bowl somehow with three losses and got to play an Illinois team that wasn’t any good before that year or hasn’t been any good since. In my mind, it was a paper-thin blowout win, but it technically counts.

Then sandwiched between a blowout loss to Texas in the Cotton Bowl and a choke-job loss to Iowa was his one national championship at LSU – a 21-14 win over an Oklahoma team that just got beat 35-7 in the Big 12 title game and had no business even playing for the national championship.

After his failed attempt to coach in the NFL (one good year that a lot of first-year coaches have and then the typical letdown the second year), he tucked tail and ran to the money at Alabama (after all, he certainly wasn’t going to run to a program where he had to consistently outcoach people to win big).

His first bowl win at Alabama was 30-24 over Colorado in the Independence Bowl. Colorado had a losing season that year and hasn’t had a winning season since, so that was hardly an impressive win.

After getting demolished by Utah the next year in the Sugar Bowl, Saban finally had his first and only undefeated season as a head coach. It was the only time he actually earned a national title instead of the perception of his genius giving it to him.

(In other words, many great coaches over the years were eliminated by one loss, so should Saban win national titles with one loss and be considered great when those coaches are considered to have not gotten the job done or near-misses in their one-loss seasons:?)

I’ve never heard that big-picture thinking by any national analyst ever. Instead they just say what Saban wants them to say.

But even in this one undefeated season against a worthy opponent for a change, his win was somewhat tainted by the fact that Texas starting QB Colt McCoy was injured in the first quarter of that game. Not his fault, I agree, but still the facts.

Then came a legitimate bowl win over Michigan State in the Capital One Bowl. He lost three more games that year mind you, but he deserves credit for the bowl win. No issues there.

The next year, though, his legend unjustifiably grew with a national title win over LSU in a season where LSU beat him on his own field. It’s a huge advantage to get to play a team twice after they already beat you.

I’m sure Bobby Bowden, for example, would have loved to have played Miami again for the national title after losing several times to the Hurricanes for his only loss on the last play of the game.

Another national title game that he really didn’t earn and was given to him without any perspective given to it. It’s just mentioned over and over like his team had this dominant season and earned this unquestioned crown when they actually lost on their home field to that same team. It’s absolutely amazing the pass this guy gets.

Then he gets to play for the national title again with another loss on his home field and this time gets to play a Notre Dame team that all non-Irish fans everywhere know wasn’t very good and shouldn’t have been playing for the national title.

Notre Dame hadn’t had a season with fewer than three losses since 1994 until that season and lost four more games this year. He got the win but that was not a worthy opponent. That was like Ali winning the heavyweight crown against the No. 5 contender.

Then this year, his Crimson Tide gets crushed by a weak Oklahoma team that had no business being in a BCS game and without a history of playing well against good teams in postseason games.

Folks, whether you buy the opinions in between the facts above, that’s hardly an unblemished record. He isn’t the best coach ever and he’s been given an awful lot of perks along the way.

He’s 8-7 in postseason play with at least three of those eight wins being highly questionable. Then you can add the fact that everyone outside of Alabama thinks he plays the easiest SEC schedule every season to even get in position for those postseason games.

This time, I’m not saying that the even the lunatic fringe doesn’t have the right to be angry. Be mad at whoever you want to be mad at.

I’m simply offering up a possible scenario, an observation and a reminder. All I ask is that you ponder the following thoughts.

First of all the hypothetical scenario that I referred to. Ever had a boss that for the most part let’s you do what you think is best, but every once in a while asks you to do something really stupid? You hate doing it, but you do it to pacify him/her just so you can keep doing what you want the rest of the time.

Just a thought.

As for the observation, consider the following: In the big picture, I really think that the cause of one day branding UL as UL beyond the 705 zip codes actually gained more folks than it lost by what took place at Cajun Field on Saturday.

Sure, the ULM folks left Cajun Field feeling really good about themselves after UL’s public address announcer was muzzled and the Warhawks won the game. Believe me, I understand how frustrating and humiliating that was.

But if UL is going to win the UL branding fight down the road, the last people who are going to give in are the ULM fans. So trying to win them over at this point in the battle is a fairly useless proposition anyway.

The point is that I still hear many UL fans who don’t get it. They don’t understand the branding process. They’re easily distracted by the flawed logic of the anti-UL contingent from everywhere else around the state.

For some of those who regularly go to the games, Saturday’s proceedings very well may have served as a slap in the face and therefore cleared up a few fuzzy issues for them – sort of, in a crazy way, drew a line in the sand for them.

In other words, I think the cause actually gained a few on-the-fence, never-really-got-it Cajun fans.

And that’s it really. There was no national attention on the game, so you didn’t lose anyone there. In the end, as shockingly painful as it was at the time, I really think the cause gained momentum on Saturday.

That leads perfectly into my reminder. Folks, STOP THINKING THAT THIS IS GOING TO BE A QUICK PROCESS. Branding a name, especially for a program that’s not on national TV every week and is not in a major conference, takes years, many, many years.

Don’t get too distracted by little bumps in the road. Stay the course. Keep fighting the fight. You gained momentum on Saturday. Just be thankful for those fence-riders who are now a little more focused and united.

Now with all of that said, should the university keep doing it the way it was done Saturday? Absolutely not.
Even if it is a good idea as some suggested (no matter what the reason for doing it was), it’ll just be a constant reminder of Saturday’s debacle on and off the field and that’s never a good plan.

The arguments of split or not split don’t mean anything anymore, so now it’s just time to analyze what’s there.

Personally, I think everyone responsible for having 0-10 and 1-9 teams in the playoffs and 10-team playoff brackets should be ashamed of themselves, but again, that’s in the past.

Now it’s just time to discuss what’s in front of us.

Some of it is promising for the area teams and some of it isn’t.

In general, it’s hard not to like Acadiana’s chances with how the Rams have played this season, but I can’t say that I love Acadiana’s bracket.

Some are concerned about how explosive Ponchatoula, but first-time teams facing the Rams don’t normally fare very well.

What’s really scary for Acadiana is the potential rematch with Barbe. When you beat a team on a last-second field goal block at home in the regular season, you don’t want to see that team again until the next season.

That’s another prime example of being the No. 1 seed isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Elsewhere in 5A, New Iberia’s bracket looks favorable. West Jefferson is scary talent-wise, but if the Jackets can win that one at home, I like their chances.

I typically don’t buy teams that give up as many points as Parkway does, so we’ll see.

Comeaux, meanwhile, got a bit of a raw deal when a week-10 forfeit by Vandebilt Catholic changed the Spartan’s first-round opponent from Zachary to Central. That also put Comeaux in West Monroe’s bracket.

In Class 4A, Breaux Bridge’s bracket looks good until the Tigers get to the quarterfinals where that pesky Neville outfit arises again.

Crowley’s having a promising season, but would have to play Karr in the second round. Rayne, on the other hand, has a real chance, at least until East Jefferson proves that its a real No. 4 seed.

In Class 3A, we could be looking at another rematch scenario with Church Point vs. Livonia. Of course, first, the Bears must overcome a scary first-round foe in McMain.

Not sure if North Vermilion’s young bunch is ready to advance in the playoffs, but the Patriots’ bracket looks pretty possible. Patterson’s level of dominance took a hit with the quarterback suffering a broken collarbone.

Speaking of injuries, I’d really like Kaplan’s bracket even more if the Pirates hadn’t lost their quarterback in Jade Herpin. That forced Devante Davis from receiver to QB and now the passing game isn’t what it was.

As the city of Loreauville continues to try to recover from the Catholic High blowout loss, the Tigers appear to have a favorable bracket … until they get to No. 1 Many in the semifinals.

On the select side, that Division II bracket isn’t quite as tough as it would have been last year, but it’s still brutal. Parkview Baptist isn’t as good as a year ago and neither is Teurlings Catholic. But still, look at all the teams that have won state titles in the past five seasons all in one bracket.

I was really hoping that STM and Notre Dame would have a chance to meet in the semifinals. That would have just been fun, but it didn’t happen. As it is, Notre Dame will likely meet Parkview again – no big chance there – and STM will need to figure out a way to sweep Evangel … with John Curtis looming for the winner.

The news gets much better for the local teams in Division II and Division IV. Calvary Baptist is good, but not what its been in recent years, so you’ve got to love Catholic High’s chances to win the entire bracket.

In Division IV, Vermilion Catholic is away from West St. John and Haynesville, so it looks like clear sailing for the Screamin’ Eagles.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the newcomers Lafayette Christian and Highland Baptist do. I love Highland Baptist’s bracket. The LCA-Sacred Heart game should be fun, but the winner would have Ouachita Christian on the other side..

So overall, bracket day was a bit of a downer for the area in my mind. Going in, I considered teams like Acadiana and St. Thomas More really good Dome contenders and they still are. But the roads don’t appear to be real clear.

Like every other media outlet in the country, especially when it comes to high school football, we make our fair share and sometimes more than our fair share.

So anytime we do, please feel free to alert us to it, so we can make the correction if it’s a factual thing that could be repeated in the future, or try to adjust some things to try to prevent it from happening again.

But I do want to get something clear. The Daily Advertiser sports department isn’t some cheerleader group when it comes to high school sports. We don’t root for one area team to win and play them up when they do and then root for other area team to lose and downgrade them if they win.

That is absolutely ridiculous.

Today, I got a complaint email about our coverage of the St. Thomas More-Breaux Bridge win. It said that a factual mistake was made with the wrong player’s name being mentioned. For that, I apologized.

The rest of it, however, was completely off base. The reader questioned our motivation and reasoning for placing the STM-BBHS game on page 4. The reader’s assumptions were not accurate.

Below was my explanation why:

“We’ve been doing the same thing for years. The Game of the Week was Acadiana-New Iberia. The Game of the Week goes on the front.

The No. 2 game goes with the two (sometimes one depending on room) photos in the centerpiece spot on the first of the two inside prep football pages. Because of ads that was on pages 2 and 3 last week, but normally it’s on pages 4 and 5.

If STM had won, they would have been in the exact same position on the exact same page. There has not been one time where we bumped a Game of the Week to put STM out front or anyone else out front. That it just not accurate.

The only difference is that with Breaux Bridge winning, we added BBHS winning to the teaser on the top of 1A. If STM had won, that teaser would have been the Game of the Week between Acadiana and New Iberia.

So actually we did more for that game with BBHS winning than we would have done if STM won.”

The reader went on to say that we give Lafayette Parish teams special treatment. In the case of covering games and where they’re placed, that is absolutely not accurate.

In fact, in this case, BBHS got more special treatment b/c they won. They got the teaser on the top of 1A, they got the player photo on the video online teaser and they got the normal spot in the section that the No. 2 game for any Friday night gets.

So if anyone had the cause to question fair and equal treatment in this case, it was St. Thomas More.

Now if you want to question our choice of the Game of the Week, that’s one thing. Acadiana vs. New Iberia had two 8-1 teams with undefeated district records with the winner being the outright district champion.

BBHS-STM was certainly a big game, but BBHS already had one district loss and three losses overall and it would have only been an outright district title if STM won.

But again, that’s a discussion I have no problem having. To assume, however, that we would have pushed the Game of the Week off the sports front to put STM on the sports front if they had won is absolutely wrong.

There’s been a lot of criticism of the Saints’ 35-17 win over Buffalo.

It started with head coach and the quarterback in the postgame press conference. It didn’t take a football genius to figure out, however.

When you’re plus-3 in turnovers at home coming off a bye week against a team with a losing record playing its second straight road game, it’s supposed to be a total blowout.

Instead, the Saints continued to struggling in pass protection, missed two field goals, didn’t do anything with a couple easy scoring opportunities, committed eight penalties and might have been in real trouble without the three turnovers.

Those issues pretty much detail the bad news.

There, however, was some good news.

For one, New Orleans won the game. As long as the team plays better in the coming weeks, that’s really all that matters. Each game is a means to an end.

Bigger picture than that, however, is the fact that another defensive strategy failed to totally choke the Saints’ offense.

In New England, the Patriots did a great job of taking Jimmy Graham out of the game. Drew Brees and Company struggled for most of the game, but still posted 20 first downs, 361 total yards and scored 27 points on the road to hold the lead until the final seconds of the game.

On Sunday, the Bills’ defense completely took Darren Sproles out of the offense. limiting him to zero receiving yards and he didn’t get a carry. Graham, meanwhile, played just a handful of plays and only had three targets.

In other words, the Saints’ offense would have to win the game basically without its top two offensive threats through the first six games.

Kenny Stills and Lance Moore and Ben Watson stepped up and the offense was still able to post 21 first downs, 386 total yards and 35 points. And if Garrett Hartley would have done his job, it very likely would have been 41 points.

As ugly as it was at times, 35 points in an NFL game will win most games, especially at home.

The No. 1 thing in my mind going into the Bills game was to figure out a way to get the wide receivers part of the offense again. Am I convinced that issue has been totally resolved? No way.

Does there appear to be hope in discovering that solution before it’s too late? Absolutely.

As great and as fun as the big plays are to watch, is anyone as confident as they used to be that the Saints would have still gotten a touchdown if Kenny Stills would have been caught from behind at the Bills’ 25?

It seems like they either score on a big play from outside the red zone or attempt field goals inside the red zone. That’s one trend will will need to change soon.

I must admit that I had to slow down on a busy high school football Friday night just a second when I heard the news that Bum Phillips died.

Bum was easy to like. He was a star coach without an ego. He never put himself or the game in higher places than they needed to be.

When some coaches were looking for theories, Bum just leaned on good ole common sense.

If you grew up loving NFL Films, how could you not like Bum?

Plus, in the end, he was just a good kind man. In this era of posturing and big contract demands and selling yourself on commercials and power struggles in the front office, it’s refreshing to consider the career of Bum.

As a football coach, he was underrated.

It’s amazed me for years that somehow Bum’s tenure as the Houston Oilers’ coach was tainted because he couldn’t beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in January.

Exactly, how many teams in the AFC were beating the Steelers in January in the mid to late 1970s? That’s a pretty short list.

No, the guy who finishes second or third in an era of dynasties is probably a pretty good coach who did a pretty good job.

In six years in Houston, he had five winning seasons. That’s pretty good folks.

He was so close to being considered great. He just could never knock that final door down.

Then he came to New Orleans. No, he never enjoyed a winning season in New Orleans, but again, he came oh so close.

Many Saints’ fans remember the Mike Lansford game. It was the final game of the 1983 regular season. If the Saints win, New Orleans would be celebrating the franchise’s first winning season and first postseason berth.

The Saints dominated the game throughout. The Rams didn’t score any offensive points until Lansford’s field goal on the game’s final play and somehow ripped Bum’s heart out with a 26-24 win in the Superdome.

But that only begins to tell the story. That year, the Saints lost 30-27 to the Rams and 21-20 at Dallas and 31-28 to the Jets and 7-0 at New England in the snow.

Bum and the Saints were oh so close to being a 10 or 11-win team that season.

And again in 1984, New Orleans went 7-9, record the franchise’s first Monday Night Football win (ironically against Bum’s biggest nemesis in Pittsburgh) and lost 30-27 in overtime at Dallas and 24-21 in Cincinnati to fall just short of the postseason.

Where Bum didn’t fall short was in establishing a solid core for the Saints moving forward.

Ever heard of the Dome Patrol? Bum started it.

Ever heard of the ‘Who Dat’ chant? Yep, that started under Bum as well.

In 1981, Bum Phillips was part of the greatest draft in Saints history. It started with the league’s leading rusher that year in George Rogers and was highlighted by a late second-round pick named Rickey Jackson – the greatest player in the franchise’s history.

Jackson, Warren and Wilks were central figures in what became the Dome Patrol.

More than just names, Bum’s defenses established a physical, defensive mindset that carried over into the Jim Mora days that produced winning seasons in 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1992, not to mention a playoff season in 1990.

The memories of some may not agree, but folks. Bum was a both gentleman and a much better football coach than given credit for.

I’ve been taking football boxscores from high school statisticians for 30 years now, and there are some very complication, confusing trends going on.

With all the technology in the world today, my first thought would be accumulating statistics and getting them to the newspaper would be easier than ever.

And yet, in the last five seasons, we have fewer schools participating in that process than in the first 25 years. Last year, we had two 5A schools in this town that did not have a statistician.

It absolutely befuddles me.

With all of that said, however, the last two weeks have been about as good as we’ve had in terms of percentage of schools reporting their games in several years.

The purpose of this blog, though, isn’t to break down that entire process, for good or bad.

It’s to give thanks and praise to those who do it well and especially those who have been doing it well for a long time.

That list includes the statisticians at the following schools – Comeaux, New Iberia, Carencro, Rayne, Eunice, Breaux Bridge, Cecilia, Church Point, Notre Dame, Loreauville, Delcambre, Westminster and St. Edmund.

Those are the A-plus stat schools. Those are the schools that if we figure we’re going to get their stats on every Friday night (or on Saturday afternoon in recent years), have learned to count on it and if they’re not there, something’s wrong.

Then there’s a special category or award that goes to Teurlings Catholic. Overall, no one has done more in terms of historical records and the kind of treatment you get when arriving at a game than the Rebels.

It’s invaluable having every score of every game the school has ever at your fingertips. Thanks to principal Mike Boyer’s commitment, you get season stats and in a format that’s easy to read.

St. Thomas More is also very good at hospitality and are at the top of most of these type of lists, just not this one.

If anyone wants to do it better, but has questions or needs advice, please feel free to email (kfoote@theadvertiser.com) or call me (289-6317).

Sure, we benefit from getting the information, because we can put out a more detailed statistical report. But the biggest benefits go to the players at your school. Their names get in the paper more.

The state leaders that the LSWA puts out comes through us. The All-State and All-Acadiana process, and even to smaller extent the All-District process as well, comes through us.

Cooperation is a two-way street and so is the benefits.

So again, here’s a standing ovation with great gratitude to all those schools who have enough pride in their football program to take it seriously enough to have a regular statistician.